https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Xinjiang_Vocational_Education_and_Training_Centers

I appreciate the effort you put into your replies to me. Genuinely. But this article is… not good. While it does make some good points about accusations of genocide being weaponized against China maliciously and about US hypocrisy, it’s also riddled with arguments I’d expect from Zionists and conservatives. To give a few examples:

abetting them to “die for their belief in order to enter heaven”.

Has very much similar energy to western stereotypes about suicide bombers and 77 virgins.

They over-generalize the “Halal” concept, stamping food, medicine, cosmetics, clothing, etc. with the Halal symbol.

This is such a weird and specific grievance that it comes off as not just prejudiced, but personally so.

Chinese protections of Islam have been reputed to be contested by some citizens as suggesting preferential treatment, refuting the claim that the China’s policies are anti-Islam.

Conservatives claim that trans, Black, etc people in the US are protected classes all the time despite severe prejudice - both systemic and social - against them existing at all levels of society, e.g. the recent refrains against DEI. One might even argue that assertions that a marginalized group is treated too well tend to be a feature of widespread prejudice. (Not saying that’s necessarily the case IRT China, just that this is a very poor argument.)

I’ll stop there, because I don’t want to be obnoxious and turn this into an argument, but there’s an abundance of issues like that. I think the writer(s) of this article have, to be blunt, probably spent too long exclusively circulating the same talking points to like minded people and have become completely oblivious as to how they sound to outsiders. I’m not trying to be insulting or mean when I say that. I personally believe that anti-China sentiment in the west currently cannot serve as anything but an excuse for western imperialism, regardless of whether or not it’s justified, so I sympathize regardless - but the only thing this article has convinced me of is that I owe my partner an apology.

There is some useful information in it and in your replies, particularly about the US side of things, but I unfortunately do have to take even that with a grain of salt as well because I cannot overstate just how poor an impression that article leaves. It may have served its purpose a few years ago, but after almost two years of the world watching the genocide in Palestine and the justifications used for it, even the most obtuse of us are intimately acquainted with Islamophobia.